Whew is Jonah Goldberg in a huff because a Marine who served in OIF had the gall to run a comparison of Iraq and Vietnam! Rants Goldberg:
can we please just drop the Vietnam analogies? It was a jungle war. It was a proxy conflict in the Cold War. It was a war in a country with a wildly different culture. We had a different politics. We had a draft and draftee army. The Civil Rights movement was in full flower. The domestic Left was more powerful, more radicalized and more listened to. Al Jazeera did not exist. Our media was controlled by a monopoly symbolized by Walter Cronkite's "the war is unwinnable" statememt. We had different weapons in Vietnam. Nor did satellite television and 24 hour cable news. Islam wasn't an issue. We didn't occupy the whole country. Some of these factors could easily be argued against our presence in Iraq. That's not the point. The point is that Vietnam is different. Our experience there illuminates, at best dimly, and often not at all what is happening today. Get over it.
Whuff! Seems like somebody touched a nerve! But let's run down the problems with Jonah's response, shall we?
1) "It was a jungle war."
What the hell difference does that make? Clearly operating in the jungle conferred some tactical advantages to the Viet Cong in 'Nam, just as urban warfare, suicide bombings, and IEDs are conferring some tactical advantages on the insurgency in Iraq. Does climate really make so much of a difference?
2) "It was a proxy conflict in the Cold War."
Well Jesus H. Christ, isn't what all you neocons have been blathering about for the past three years? You know, Iraq, the democratic domino theory, the proxy war between the West and totalitarian Islam? Do you not buy that anymore? How come?
3) It was a war in a country with a wildly different culture.
Wildly different from whom? Can wars only be compared if they're against the same country? Why?
4) We had a different politics.
Can wars only be compared if the politics of the invading country are the same? Why?
5) We had a draft and draftee army.
Agreed, but irrelevant to the questions authors raised in the Slate article, which were about the risks of being an infantry troop in both 'nam and Iraq.
6) The Civil Rights movement was in full flower.
Gay marriage! Gay marriage!
7) The domestic Left was more powerful, more radicalized and more listened to.
True, what about MoveOn.org, and true. But again largely irrelevant as to the nature of the fight on the ground.
8) Al Jazeera did not exist.
Also true, but underestimates the impact of some of the propaganda campaigns run by the North Vietnamese. See here, for example.
9) Our media was controlled by a monopoly symbolized by Walter Cronkite's "the war is unwinnable" statememt.
Umm, have you read National Review lately?
10) We had different weapons in Vietnam.
Umm...
11) Nor did satellite television and 24 hour cable news.
No, but the "monopoly symbolized by Walter Cronkite's 'the war is unwinnable' statement" did a pretty good job of pouring cold water on the war, no?
12) Islam wasn't an issue.
No, but international Communism supposedly was. See #2.
13) We didn't occupy the whole country.
We may officially occupy all of Iraq, in a traditional military sense, but I invite you to take a mosey around Sadr City or Samarra one of these days. Occupy?
Then we get this dreck:
What also drives me nuts about the Vietnam analogies is that there are obviously better examples in one sense or another from our own military history (the Phillipines perhaps?) and certainly from the British experience (everywhere). But either because the authors of op-eds don't want to do that sort of homework or because editors think Vietnam moves copy for the historically illiterate like stories about dogs and Britney Spears do for everone else, they don't want to run that stuff.
Umm, you wanna use the Phillipines as an example? That old conflict where "the war dragged on for 14 years. Before it ended, about 120,000 U.S. troops were deployed, more than 4,000 were killed, and more than 200,000 Filipino civilians and soldiers were killed. Resentment lingered a century later during Bush's visit." That Phillipines? You sure you don't want a Mulligan on that one?
And dude, if you're gonna be all haughty about who's "historically illiterate," at least get your facts straight first. Hm?
One key difference between Vietnam and
Iraq involves the potential for
Vietnamization.
The Sunni fundamentalist/Baathist insurgency has no support among 80% of the population and next to no support in something like 2/3 of the territory of Iraq.
Since the U.S. gave in to Sistani and agreed to elections rather than waiting for the new (liberal democratic) Iraqi man to arise, the result will soon be a Shiite government.
It seems likely that the survival of that government will not be seriously threatened
by the insurgents.
What we will see instead is a problematic effort by that government to impose its will in the Sunni Arab areas of Iraq.
If the Shia government wants U.S. aid in that effort, then the result will be an effective "Vietnamization" of the confict.
I believe that the new government will insist
on a rapid U.S. withdrawal. Rather than
depending on some future, highly-trained
professional army devoted to liberal
democracy (the current plan,) it will depend
on a mass army or poorly trained infantry
motivated by promises of heaven and fear of
renewed Sunni Arab domination--with an ultimate
security guarantee from Iran. I think they
can put it together soon.
Possible problems--
The U.S. government refuses to see the election as "legitimate" and refuses to do what the new government requests.
Iran doesn't insist that the U.S. leave (and move those troops further from Iran and so less of a threat to Iran) but rather prefers to let the U.S. army bleed in Sunni Iraq while being within range for Iranian retaliation in response to a U.S. attack on Iran.
I don't think those are likely, so I anticipate
the U.S. will be out soon and be giving aid.
But, we will see.
Posted by: Bill Woolsey | January 01, 2005 at 10:40 AM
The existing situation here in Iraq is that the US Army has destroyed the Iraqi threat to Iran. It has done this by destroying its own Army. Just the result that a clever Iranian foreign policy might have. Two threats with one blow.
Posted by: Jon Stopa | January 02, 2005 at 12:22 PM
Jon Stopa makes an excellent point. It reminds me of the strategy the United States employed during the 1980s, when the Iraqis and the Iranians were slaughtering each other. The U.S. sided with former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein against the Iranians, who were viewed as an implacable foe, who had the audacity to hold U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979.
Both Iraq and Iraq were severely weakened by the war. Iraq was economically drained, which led it to try to grab Kuwait's oil fields. This was a costly mistake, which resulted in Western nations and some Arab nations forming a coalition to militarily force Iraq out of Kuwait. Economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq, from which it still has not recovered. The consequence of the U.S. strategy was that two potential foes were neutralized. Now, one of them--Iraq--is being occupied by the U.S. The question: Is Iran next?
Posted by: Munir Umrani | January 02, 2005 at 01:58 PM